We must take
some vague, sadistic
pleasure in discrepancy;
for our birth
is accorded the mantle
of a miracle,
while death
is shunned and suspect,
despite its equal mystery.
And all the wedding guests
are impressed
by the ice sculpture,
even as they mill about
and fret
about the ice caps,
and sigh into their
plastic cups, and cluck their
tongues at one another.
It's as if our expectations
were the province
of magicians,
since the place from which
our strange assurance
so winningly emerges
is often the same
empty cage
into which
the audience
just watched our dismay
get inserted.
